So, in my previous blogpost I shared with you some ways in which I cope with time. And this blogpost will go further on it. For, it has turned out, that even with my ‘assistants’ (OneNote and Wunderlist) some things are still very hard to do exactly as planned/required/wanted.

At the moment I am still writing my first paper and some weeks it seems, I cannot write a word at all! It doesn’t have anything to do with not knowing what to write, but with:

Not having time to write, or even

Being ‘scared’ to write (yeah, you read well, scared, as in frightened, terrified)

No time? And what about planning….?

Yeah, I know, last time I said that time can be made…

Or at least it can be made clear to you, the only thing you have to do is use it. Well, it appears now that you can have these periods of time where this seems all a wonderful dream, which will never come true. Other things just come on your path, some of these things need to go first, others are for a later time. But both these types of ‘things’ consume your time like it is nothing. It simply disappears into thin air. And funny thing, in my case, part of all ‘things’ have a lot to do with writing my first paper, although the actual writing is not happening. For example, going with my supervisor over the coding of my interviews and discussing what to do and what not to do. However, after these discussions, other tasks await and I am unable to immediately act upon what was discussed. Very frustrating! This is definitely keeping me from writing.

Scared?

Then there is the ‘being scared’ that can keep me from writing. Just imagine for yourself: you’ve worked VERY hard on an entire paper/section of a paper/any other thing important writing. Then, you get feedback from your supervisors. Not something to be scared of, I mean, you can expect feedback and it is very likely it will help you make your paper even better. So getting feedback is not the thing I am scared of. What scares me, is rewriting.

My supervisors’ feedback always gives me great ideas about how to adjust certain sections in my paper. However, I find the threshold very high for indeed adjusting these sections. I’m afraid it won’t turn out the way I want it to, or that halfway through, I have lost my flow and won’t be able to adjust the way I had in mind… That actually is one hell of a threshold for me to get over every time after receiving feedback. I do get there, one time sooner then another. What makes it really easy to get over this threshold is by using some approaches:

Writing in a new document, where my previous writing is no distraction

Making a to do-list in which I write in what order I will process the feedback and adjust my paper

Especially this last option has helped me quite some times.

At the moment I am happily continuing writing my paper (after having published this blogpost). Writing this post has helped me a bit, actually. Also, right now I really know what I want to do with my paper, so I am fully focused on rewriting parts of my paper.

Hopefully, you reading this post has helped you a little picking up/continuing your writing ;-). Just remember, you are not alone!

Translate:

Interaction & Sharing

Please, feel free to add comments and questions to the posts by clicking on the title of the post. At the bottom you can put your comments.
Please share the post in your network by clicking on the icon (-s) below the posts.

Email Subscription

Stay connected by email: receive one email a day only when new content is posted